PayMedia founder bags Most Valuable ICT Entrepreneur Award 2015

Kanishka Weeramunda – founder of PayMedia (Pvt.) Ltd – one of Sri Lanka’s most innovative start-up companies, recently turned a new chapter in entrepreneurship, by grabbing the much-coveted ‘Most Valuable ICT Entrepreneur of the Year 2015’ at last Friday’s National Best Quality ICT Awards (NBQSA).

Only the most distinguished individuals who have excelled in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector are selected and recognized in NBQSA for their entrepreneurship skills as well as delivery.

“I am overwhelmed by this award and I believe it will allow me to reach greater heights and accomplish much greater achievements for the organisations I serve,” Kanishka Weeramunda said.

“It’s all about stat ups and innovation. I always had the burning desires to do new things,” he added.

Weeramunda initiated PayMedia as an innovative start-up company in 2014. Within a time span of just fifteen months PayMedia facilitated two leading banks in Sri Lanka - Sampath Bank and Hatton National Bank - to manage their cash and cheque deposit machines (CCDM) ensuring maximum efficiency and security.

Through PayMedia’s CCDM, these banks can now accept payments online in real-time. Sampath Bank currently facilitate nearly 4,000 transactions per day which translates into 1.46 million transactions per annum

PayMedia is also working with Sri Lanka’s largest state-owned utility - Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) - to automate its payment systems and recently completed the automation of CEB’s Dehiwala customer centre.

PayMedia has also initiated another innovative telecommunication sector project in Netherlands and Belgium relating to mobile top-ups.

“Currently, we support 72 telcos in Netherlands and 54 in Belgium, distributing mobile top up vouchers on an electronic platform over 700 retail outlets. The project has eliminated card printing, logistics troubles, inventory management and it’s a 99.9 percent script-less, paperless and green initiative as it involves minimal amount of paper. The advantage of this project is that it facilitates the entire distribution, redistribution and sales. Another aspect is that as the pre-paid operation function on credit basis, it addresses the credit and collection issue and the complete system runs on a prepaid model. Nearly 10,000 customers rely on us every day, which translates to nearly 300,000 transactions per month,” explained Weeramunda.

Speaking of their future plans Kanishke said, “As I said earlier 4,000 transactions are done per day and we wanted to expand this to other teller operations. We are now on the verge of creating a unit to initiate cash deposit and withdrawal functions together – Smart Banking. From account opening to cash and cheque depositing to third party payment, loan approvals, current statements and inquiries – anything and everything is possible through a machine in Smart Banking.,”

Weeramunda has taken part in many international start-up competitions such as, 4YFN (4 Years From Now) Barcelona 2015, InnovFest unBound Singapore and will showcase his products to the EU (European Union) market by participating in InnovFest unBound London and this month at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Gold Cost, Australia.

Currently he is the Campus Director of Edulink International Campus, where he took over the Victoria higher education campus and restructured the business from a single provider to a multi partner provider.